International Languages Week

Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School 2008

For the first time this year Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School decided to do something during ILW.  Both Lower and Upper School language teachers (Japanese and German) were keen to promote languages and determined to have some fun.  As none of us had had much experience organising an event of this scale, we aimed not to be too ambitious this year even though we felt we had come up with some brilliant ideas. 

ILW was launched on Monday during assemblies (Lower and Upper Schools).  All the activities were introduced and Year 10 students proudly spoke greetings in many different languages (Japanese, German, Spanish, Maori, French, Dutch, Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Polish, and Russian).

On Tuesday we decorated the foyer with posters, paper cranes and flowers.  We also mounted large pieces of cardboard and invited students and teachers to write greeting in different languages.  This was very popular and we ended up with a beautiful poster with all those languages even though it was only open during the lunch period.  The poster was left in the foyer for the rest of the week.  Some parents who came to pick up the children were also impressed.  Also both schools run quiz competitions – some were general language questions and others were specific to either Japanese or German.  In the Upper School we also included Olympic questions – matching the pictures of different sports and names in five different languages (Japanese, German, Spanish, Chinese and French).  Five students claimed Japanese prizes.

On Wednesday we had an International Dress-Up Day.  The students of both schools were encouraged to dress up in national costume or as an athlete to incorporate with the Olympic Games.  We had a huge response from the Lower School – so many students were dressed up in beautiful costumes.  All those who dressed up donated a $1 to the Peace Foundation – it was a joint effort to promote world peace with the PE Department (although no Olympic athletes turned up at school!).  During lunchtime we gathered and made paper cranes.  The day turned out to be very warm and sunny so students stayed outside and played however we still had some teachers and students hear the story of Sadako and make paper cranes.

Thursday was our highlight with an International Lunch.  Year 12 students made some delicious sushi, I provided warm “Gomoku-zushi” (vegetable sushi), there was authentic gateau from German teachers, German dried sausages, Dutch sweet bread, brownies, quiche and miso soup.  All the food was sold in small portion for $1 each so that students could afford to taste most things. Again there was a huge response from the Lower school with teachers and students forming a long queue.  Some teachers even came back for seconds.  All the food was sold out in 20 minutes! 

During the week all the Japanese classes got to taste some Japanese food.  “Pocky” and “Hichu” are always popular among students so I introduced some other food such as “Osenbei” and “Nodo Ame”.  These are less “junk” and the students thoroughly enjoyed the treats.  Some girls even fought to keep some of the colourful packages!

It was a huge success for the first time – huge thank you to the Sasakawa Fellowship Fund for their generous help.  Lack of funding is a common obstacle shared by many state schools – with your support our students discovered “learning languages” is not always serious with lots of hard work but is also about enjoying different cultures.  Our students already look forward to next year – it will be even more fun as we now know how to run the events and what could be improved.

Mikiko Hoya
Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School
Lower Hutt